"I LOVE French-Canadians" Dwight Stone, 1976I've spent a bit of
time on ‘dodgy ducks’ – having seen the especially dodgy Eastern Spot-billed
Duck (looking now to be a hybrid) in Massachusetts a few days ago, and the
apparently more valid Common Shelduck in Sept-Iles, Quebec this morning. Both
birds were surprisingly shy. The Shelduck took a bit of work in this morning’s
snowstorm, and flushed unexpectedly from several hundred metres ahead of me as
I followed the river from bridge to sea, where after it flew, and flew, and
flew. Was very lucky to get camera working quickly enough. The advice from my
elders is to ditch the Massachusetts bird, but to put the Shelduck on my
‘provisional’ list, as it is becoming increasingly believable that this species
is a natural vagrant to the northeast.

Bienvenue a Sept-Iles, Quebec!

Bonjour sunshine!

Je te vois malavisee canard!

Moments after seeing the Common Shelduck, and busting out of my skin.
As usual, nobody around to 'high-five', so resorted to mood-capturing, lens-cracking selfie.
The tail-end of 2016 is increasingly feeling like the 'big year' that I signed up for!

A special thank you to Canadian birders Samuel Denault and Patricia Lalonde for the gen on this bird: Merci beaucoup!!!

Will have to up my carbon offset forecasts fairly
dramatically after the last week of travel. Due to terrible timing of unfolding
of information about the Pine Bunting that Clarence Irrigoo found, and in
recognition of predicted winds that seemed likely to cause cancellation of
flights to and from Gambell for next few days, I flew from Seattle to Miami on
the 23rd, instead of making the smarter move to Nome and Gambell.
I’d heard new intel about the now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t La Sagra’s
Flycatcher at Key Biscayne, Florida, so thought it was the least of three
potential evils – being stuck on Gambell for potentially days on end, missing
the La Sagra’s for the third time, or chasing the Massachusetts duck that would
probably wind up being uncountable due to questionable provenance. Feeling conflicted
and wounded, I wasn’t emotionally prepared for my message updates on my layover
in Detroit – about halfway through the 12-hour flight ordeal from Seattle to
Miami: the Pine Bunting was still present in Clarence’s backyard, while forecast
weather conditions had dramatically calmed. If I could have retrieved my bags,
I would have, and turned around. Instead, I cried inside (and maybe just a
little on the outside), buckled down, and got on my next flight leg.

Fortunately, the trip to Miami played out
well, despite working myself up to the vomit-stage. Laura and Dave were also looking
for the La Sagra’s at Bill Baggs State Park, and we kept in touch during our
search on Wednesday and Thursday via text messaging. I saw the bird on both the Wednesday
(24 Nov) and Thursday mornings. On the first occasion, near the bicycle rental
building (which is a few hundred metres from ‘the’ off-limits epicentre of
recent sightings), I tracked it down as it was calling, and managed to get
sound recordings and one fleeting, but good view. I hung in for another hour without hearing a peep, before searching the perimeter of the restricted areas where I really wanted to be. Thursday morning Laura and I
called in to the park office to ask for permission to wander the ‘off
limits’ trails where
the bird had been sighted on multiple recent occasions. To our surprise and joy, the reception was
very warm, and we were given approval for the day to search the area. We found that the bird was dipping in and out of a large
fig tree, though neither of us managed to get a photograph. Laura got a much
better sound recording of it after I left, clearly capturing the unmistakeable
‘wheet… wheet’ (higher than Great-crested Flycatcher). We bumped into well-known local birder Robin Dias, who has been undertaking banding and
monitoring surveys of the birds of the reserve for many years, and was
on one of her regular birding ‘rounds. She was initially a little
surprised to encounter us in the off-limits area, but then was delighted to hear
that we had gained permission to be there. She listened to my recording of the La Sagra's - barely audible, and gave the 'thumbs up' (she later also gave higher thumbs up to Laura for her recordings, which are apparently quite good). She told us that the tree where we’d seen the bird was the same one
that she had seen it flying backwards and forwards to and from the Gumbo Limbo tree across the track on previous occasions, but was
frustrated by not being able to openly share the information.

The inimitable Laura Keane after seeing La Sagra's Flycatcher,

well and truly surpassing the 750 species mark.

And no signs of slowing down!

A nice outcome from Laura and my La Sagra’s
twitch was that Robin followed up with a discussion with the park management,
and nutted out an understanding that so long as birders stuck to certain
guidelines, they would from that point on be given access to certain areas that
were hitherto out of bounds – including what appears to be the current
principal hangout of the La Sagra’s. Here’s something Robin wrote for the
Tropical Audubon birding discussion forum.

After changing my flight destinations from
Miami - first from Gambell to Boston (information about the legitimacy of the
Eastern Spot-billed Duck was in a state of oscillation), then back to Gambell
again, I embarked yet again on nearly the longest set of flights possible within
the continental United States, for the ‘surely its gone by now’ Pine Bunting. I’d
been communicating with Clarence on a daily basis, and although he was seeing
the bird at least once each day, he expressed concern about the rapidly
deteriorating weather conditions, which included very high winds and driving
sleet. One of his photographs from Friday suggested that the bird might be
starting to look weak.

My connecting flight from Anchorage to Nome
included my chief competitor for this year’s effort – Bradley McDonald - of
pen-name ‘Olaf Danielson’. We took different flights from Nome to Gambell – he
on RAVN, me on Bering Airlines, and his flight landed twenty minutes or so
ahead of mine. I climbed out of my eight-seater at 4:30PM, with maybe 45
minutes of visible light remaining, and biting cold and windy conditions. I
scanned the ATVs that were picking up or dropping off freight and passengers
and found ‘John’, a young local family man was prepared to be my guide for the
next half hour. Moving in at ‘the lodge’ could wait - we strapped my bags on
the vehicle and bolted for Clarence’s house. He was home, and the three of us
walked twenty metres or so towards the beach before John said ‘those’ three
words: “There it is.” I love those words. “There it is…” Clarence and I could
see he was right! The Pine Bunting was bigger than I’d expected – seemingly as
big as a Snow Bunting, and clearly with the tell-tale chestnut eye stripe with
white ‘patch’ below it. It struck me as looking just a bit dishevelled, and
moved around furtively at ground level, allowing an uninvited dog to nearly
catch it. Just as I clumsily began firing my camera with rapidly numbing
fingers, Olaf appeared and joined the photo session. I said “You gotta admit, this
is as good a moment as we’ll ever get together - later on we can go back to wanting to strangle each other.” He didn't disagree. Later, with just Olaf and I occupying the spacious ‘lodge’,
there were pleasant discussions about the bird and other subjects – which I
certainly enjoyed. It really was the case that we’d both left getting to
Gambell impossibly late, and were very lucky to see the bunting. My etremities
were so cold and numb that I somehow injured a ring-finger at some stage without
realising it. Now it seems to be bent at the first knuckle won’t straighten out
by its own volution.

The beach view from near Clarence's back door. That's the Pine Bunting

in the very centre of image - just before a dog nearly caught it.

The next day saw pre-sunrise ‘birdable’
conditions at 11:00, at which time I set off for a four-hour hike around some
of the birding hotspots, including the ‘far boneyard’, along the mountain edge
to beyond the ‘mossy pool’ to the east, and to the Alcid rookery areas where
cliff meet sea, then back to town and Clarence’s place.

The 'Far Boneyard' - a snowy leg-break trap that yielded no birds. But providing

as magical and unforgettable an experience as I could ever have asked for.

Life-blood of the Arctic

After a not-so-fantastic week or two, I left Gambell

feeling better than I've felt in a long time.

It’s been eventful post-Gambell, but I’ll
catch up again soon. Yeah, sure. In the mean time, Ken Blankenship has been helping immensely with the retrogressive uploading of my eBird listings, such as they will be. I expect there will be teething issues, so suggestions are welcome, but save the complaints till the whole process is complete! And nearly through uploading the images I have of the birds on my list. Hopefully by year's end I'll fill some of the missing spaces, but should reach the 95% mark in the next few days. Once I figure out how to edit sound recordings, I'll put up recordings for all of the nocturnal birds for which I don't have photos, except for one - Boreal Owl, which has 'done me wrong' all through the year.

Oh, and wanted to let all of you weary travelers know

that 'Fat Smitty's Place' has it all! For the right traveler at least.
Some where in Washington - I think about two weeks ago.